Tiware dam breach update – 10 bodies found, 14 people still missing

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Chiplun, Maharashtra, July 3, 2019 : The rescue operation has been stopped for the night and it will resume on Thursday morning. Till now bodies of 10 persons have been recovered, while 14 others are still missing.

The incident took place at about 9.30 pm on Tuesday. Tiware dam has capacity of 0.08 TMC. It is a dam made of mud and stones. The water is used for irrigation, drinking purpose. The discharge from dam goes into an unnamed rivulet which merges with Vashishthi river, which further merges into Dabhol creek and further in Arabian sea.

According to National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), after breach on the right hand side of dam wall which also housed a jack well and concrete pipes for discharge, a wide section of wall about 40 feet wide and 60 feet deep collapsed releasing large amount of water with silt, mud, boulders. There was a big noise accompanying it.

This big mass of water with high velocity struck a hamlet of Tivre village which was very close to the wall. 12 houses and 1 temple were completely washed away. Nothing remained. As per locals people from 3 houses were alert and ran to safety in time.

This sudden discharge led to sudden increase in water level which caused heavy silting on banks and destroyed crops. Most of the bodies were found stuck in bushes and mud within a distance of about 1.5 Kms from dam site. Bodies recovered by locals and administration.

As of now 2 teams of 5 BN NDRF are working with local administration, NGOs and private trekking groups. The NDRF has set up incident command post and established VHF communication between teams. Joint coordination meeting has been conducted with all stakeholders.

The officials have now taken decision to distribute the area for further rescue work. “Considering wide area to be searched, it has been decided to distribute it amongst various agencies based on their capabilities, resources and experience. All search teams will have a local guide who will help them in search. All recovered bodies will be first brought to Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Dadar village and from there it will be shifted to Chiplun Govt. Hospital for Post Mortem”.